Yeah I was speculating as to a possible incitation point for the concept. However, I just found a hit regarding the real cause, or at least the most likely genesis of the idea that vaccines cause autism. The below article gives a good overview. It seems to have begun with a since disproven paper, which injected the idea into the public, where it most likely metastasized through fear and spread from there, finding a home in a small portion of a very belief-based population. This now defunct paper did analyze cases with a possible link, thus the "that's not to say there weren't a small handful of actual cases that could have possibly been related". Anything is possible. Biology is messy and not mechanical. Certain individuals could very well have had bad reactions.
But it turns out the data in the paper was fudged, so even if one or two kids did (appear to) develop autism from vaccines, possibly leading to the study in the first place, it's certainly nothing substantial, and much more likely completely false. Remember, I don't deal with absolutes, and avoid the prison of two ideas. Reality is always somewhere in between, always more complex, although in this case I'd put it roughly at a 1 to 99 probability that there was even one genuine case of a vaccine directly causing autism, given all that's known.
https://www.everydayhealth.com/news/where-did-myth-about-vaccines-autism-come-from/
I agree motive doesn't really matter to the outcome. But if we want to try to change a culture where such things are occurring at increasing levels, motive is a key factor to finding the right approach to a possible solution, or how to address it when someone espouses such belief-based concepts that are clearly not well-supported by known, empirically verifiable, real-world information. And yes, you're absolutely right. Statistically speaking, a couple of possible rare incidents, even if they do have merit (which again, is in question), cannot be substantiated medically, while claims of large numbers are demonstrably false, a shaky belief at best.
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Never believe. Always question. Rebuke belief, a.k.a. bias, a.k.a. groupthink, a.k.a. ideology, the bane of skeptical, logical reason.
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TrentnQuarantino (9443)
3 years ago
Thanks, but I don't need to read article or be lectured about this ... this vaccine controversy of BS has been going on for decades and I've read enough to know what is expected even in the worst case from vaccines. They do not take weeks, or even days to induce a problem ... and certainly not months or years. The main problem is allergic reactions to the contents of the vaccine - not even the active proteins.
Basically someone said - wow, autism rates have been going up for a while now, it must be caused by vaccinations because they have too.
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warrior-poet (1369)
3 years ago
No worries, just thought you (or more importantly, anyone else reading this who may disagree), might find that article interesting (and informative, perhaps even leading them to change their minds a bit). And, very true. The only substantiated cases of reactions to vaccines are immediate allergic responses (e.g. gelatin, egg or other proteins, etc.), and these are very, very rare. Certainly not autism.
And the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines don't even contain these types of ingredients, i.e. there's less chance of an allergic reaction to them than to traditional flu vaccines, at least based on the ingredients. Doesn't mean there haven't been any ultra-rare side effects to these largely untested vaccines, but some people are sowing panic that simply isn't founded. Over half the planet is now vaccinated, and even of the possible adverse effects the percentage is very small, and the actual cases will be a fraction of that.
_________________________________________
Never believe. Always question. Rebuke belief, a.k.a. bias, a.k.a. groupthink, a.k.a. ideology, the bane of skeptical, logical reason.
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